Your First Beer

Here’s a quick post to get you in the mood for a few beers this weekend.

Despite the fact that sleep deprivation (due to very young child) has turned my brain to jello (it’s not like it was much above pudding to begin with), I can still vividly recall my first taste of beer. My family didn’t take many trips or vacations, so it is easy for me to recall the trip to Cape Cod we took during the summer between fifth and sixth grade. Aside from the great memories one would expect from such a trip (beaches, pinball at the hotel, more beaches, and seeing Star Wars for the first time at a theater on a rainy day), I also can recall my first taste of beer.

I was only 11 years old, but that didn’t stop me from asking my mother to try the Budweiser she was imbibing with lunch. And it didn’t keep her from saying, “Go ahead.” It was a different, time, perhaps a tad saner, when people could intuit that a taste of beer wasn’t going to ruin their child’s brain or cause other irreparable harm.

I recall that the beer from the brown bottle was very fizzy and sharp, not unlike seltzer. I can also recall a sort of sweet, fruity taste that was bit off-putting, but overall the experience wasn’t so gross that I didn’t sneak a second sip. In the end, I didn’t really like it and didn’t have another beer until I was in college.

Fortunately, in those later days I discovered many beers that I found delicious, started homebrewing and then turned pro. The rest is history in the making.

What about your first beer? I’m guessing that some readers may be young enough to have tried something really interesting their first time out. Maybe it would even be fun to revisit that beer tonight?

14 Responses

My first beer was a Coors Light that I took from the fridge when my parents were out. I was 12 or 13 (1987 or so). I took one sip in the kitchen and proceeded to walk toward the stairs to the basement, where I was going to finish the rest. I got about two steps onto the living room carpet and spilled the entire beer all over the floor. I sopped it up the best I could with paper towels. Then I got the bright idea to spill orange juice on top of it as a disguise. I crushed the can and buried it in the yard. My story about the spilled juice seemed to work. Thinking back on it though, I would be surprised if they didn’t smell the beer.

My first taste of beer was from my grandfather’s bottle of Schaefer lager. I remember it as unpleasantly bitter. But that was from the perspective of an 8 year old. For some reason it didn’t stop me from future tastings even though my dad didn’t approve of me sampling beer. (“Pa, don’t give the kids beer!” Didn’t do any good). I wish my grandfather were around today to sample the many homebrews I’ve concocted over the years. He probably wouldn’t approve of most of them. He was a typical working man who was loyal to his lager beer. You mention how it was a different time, a tad saner. Grandpa used to take me and my brothers into his local watering hole (The 3 S’s, I think it was on Judson St. in Albany). Grandpa would go there not only to imbibe after work but visit with all his cronys. He would admonish us every time to sit at a table while he sat at the bar. Even standing with him at the bar was taboo. We sat there having a great time downing one soft drink after another: root beer, coke and orange soda. Invariably we’d have to excuse ourselves and visit the men’s room. When we came back to the table we found all grampa’s cohorts had lined up more glasses filled with root beer, coke and orange soda. The whole process would start over again. We were like Forrest Gump drinking up all the Dr. Pepper while visiting the Kennedy White House. While leaving the bar grandpa would give us the next stern warning; “Don’t tell your grandmother where we’ve been.” Coming into the house grandpa would go directly upstairs or to the back porch to smoke a Camel. Grandma would ask “So where were you kids, at the 3 S’s?” “Yes, grama.” So much for keeping secrets. Thanks for the memories George!

I think we all asked for sips of our dad’s fizzy yellow beer when were little, out of curiosity. I remember my dad saying “ok, but you’re not gonna like it.” Sure enough I didn’t. I didn’t like the wine we drank at church, either. Even in college I didn’t drink much because the Milwaukee’s Best Ice was pretty nasty.

I can remember drinking the first beer I actually liked. I got a Magic Hat mix pack around 2005 and drank the IPA. I loved the way it smelled and tasted. I had no idea there was more than one flavor to beer before then. Yeah it took me that long to figure it out.

I like your addition to the topic: what is the first beer you actually liked.

For me, it was Spaten Uer-Maerzen, followed very quickly by Spaten Optimator and then Erste Kulmbacher Union (EKU) 28. Each one was maltier than the previous. It was when I learned that malt is awesome!

My 1st was a Michelob and as a sign of things to come I didn’t spit it out and say “this is gross”! That happened when I tried Genny and Schaefer for the 1st time. I think I was 10 at the time of my 1st. My older brother didn’t like it too much since it was his beer. Those beers and their “quality” certainly have an influence on what beer you appreciate when you get older.

A couple of sips of my Dad’s Genny Cream Ale next to the campfire at Moffit’s Beach Campground. I was probably 7 or 8. And to answer your last question George, I will definitely not be revisiting that beer tonight!

Sadly, the first beer was The Natural Light (still has a soft spot in my heart) in college. First beer I truly liked, Legend Oatmeal Stout, out of Richmond. Delicious. Now I’m game for nearly everything except fruit in beer.

I was 12 or 13, and my parents were out for the evening. I stole one
of my Dad’s beers from the fridge. It was called Gablinger’s,which was
apparently an early attempt at light beer. I recall the TV ads said it would not fill you up so that you could eat a sandwich with it. It was horrible to my pubescent palate, like rusty nails in club soda. The can featured a man who looked like Woodrow Wilson and Calvin Coolidge. If it was Gablinger he should not have shown his face !I dumped most of it down the sink. About a year later , a buddy snuck out some of his old man’s Utica Club’s.It tasted like Utica. I couldn’t understand why people drank beer. Thankfully, I got over that misunderstanding.

First beer I drank was certainly a Miller Genuine Draft out of a can. I distinctly remember the sharp bite and thinking good lord people drink this stuff?

First beer I remember really liking which set me off on the quest was Pilsner Urquell. I had been drinking a fair share of Guiness, Bass Ale and assorted other imports, as well as early craft stalwarts Sierra (particularly the Pale Ale and Stout) as well as Sam Adams, Pete’s Wicked Ale and a few others. Now I had experienced Pilsner Urquell from the bottle, often a touch skunky, sometimes just stale. But when I had it at the Waterfront Alehouse in Manhattan on draft, fresh I thought they had served me the wrong beer. In that same night I had a Chimay Red and a Blue. It has been all up hill ever since.

First beer – Molson at a cast party when I was 13, bought by a senior (drinking age was 18). First beer I liked – Sam Adams, when I realized that beer could actually have some flavor! That was the beginning of the craft brew avalanche for me.

I believe my first taste of draft beer was Carling Black Label. My dad and his two brothers were remodeling one of my uncle’s two-car garage into an apartment. It was the weekend, it was nice out, I believe they had a Yankees game on something like a 15″ black-and-white TV setting on a chair in the driveway. They didn’t kill the keg on Sarturday but it was kinda’ flat on Sunday – so they threw a little salt into it to bring out the carbonation – which lasted about ten seconds. I can tell you there is truly nothing like warm, salty, flat Carling Black Label draft – well, maybe one thing…

Canned or bottled beer – I don’t know but it would have been one of Genesee, Utica Club, Schlitz, Schmidt’s, Schaefer, Piels, Rheingold, Carling Black Label – or an outside chance of Budweiser.

My favorite style now is Belgian, particularly the doubles and quads. Other than that, make mine malty, not hoppy – bocks, double bocks, Russian Imperial Stouts – or good brown English ales, porters, and stouts.

I expect my first was Ballantine when I was about 9. Mowing the lawn, we had enough so it would take almost half a day with two mowers (push). We would take a break, have a sandwich, drink beer and continue. Never cared for the beer, drank only a little then. Later went to Genesee, Miller, Michelob, then to dark beers. Now I like Ehrlinger, if I have it spelled right, but the local craft beers are good.

I was seven, and the neighbor’s yard party broke up soon after I went to bed. Looking out the window, I saw the last reveler filling up a cup from the keg (Reingold, I think) and being led away home by his wife (presumably). With the keg unattended, I was out the window and down the sloping roof to the ladder my dad had forgotten to put away weeks ago. I grabbed an empty gallon class jug out of the shed, went through the gap in the fence at the back of the yard, and nearly filled the jug. Back in my yard, I took a long slug from the jug,and it was love at first taste. Barely was able to get back up to my room after I gave up the jug, and eventually had to hose off the slanting roof the next day while experiencing for the first time, carrying around a head that felt it was two times as large as it should have been. Waited a few years before trying beer again, after that.

Note: The Times Union is not responsible for posts and comments written by non-staff members.